


Learning to Adjust

by mogwai_do



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 18:43:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogwai_do/pseuds/mogwai_do
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's having some difficulty adjusting to a change of personal circumstance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning to Adjust

It is ludicrous, ridiculous and highly improbable. It's also true and the fact of it has Sherlock pacing the living room as if he could outrun himself. He knows the facts, acquainted himself with them thoroughly after John's initial diagnosis. He hadn't bothered to ask how John had known, warzones were not places where secrets lived long, but even so it bothered him that he himself hadn't known until then.

It was a genetic legacy; free-floating obsolete DNA that under the wrong circumstances could combine or mutate and produce things like Parkinson's or arthritis or this. John had put its surfacing down to the abuse Sherlock regularly subjected his body to, and in all fairness, Sherlock hadn’t been able to find any other trigger. John was, above all, a practical man however and his only real reaction had been to locate the supplies Sherlock would need. Mycroft, unsurprisingly had ensured his condition and his name did not make it onto any official documentation. As his brother, Sherlock wondered in fact if Mycroft had known about this susceptibility long ago; they certainly shared a great many more traits than either of them was comfortable with. He would never ask though and Mycroft would never tell.

For the most part it was irrelevant, it hadn't actually changed his daily life in any noticeable way; with the exception of John and Mycroft in fact, no-one else knew at all. His strength, intelligence and resilience had remained in the top percentile of the average human range, but Sherlock wondered if he should have evaluated himself long ago instead of taking his good health for granted, but then he'd grown up this way, it had been his 'normal' and not an indication of any genetic predisposition.

There was actually only one fact of his new condition that bothered him, but it was beyond intolerable. Sherlock was used to denying his body's needs, for sleep, for sustenance, for rest, but this need wouldn't be ignored, couldn't be. It was like an itch beneath his skin that progressed to an almost-sneeze, to the feeling of orgasm denied. It was need, pure, raw and unrefined. It consumed his thoughts, making a mockery of his deductive powers.

He should have mentioned to John earlier that they were out of supplies; he would have been able to pick something up, but Sherlock hadn't really been paying attention to the first twinges of his body’s warning system. He should have said something before John went to bed an hour ago, because John would have aided and abetted breaking and entering without a qualm if Sherlock's health were at stake. Sherlock could even have gone out by himself, if he'd thought about it sooner, but he hadn't and now he was trapped.

Sherlock didn't trust himself to go out into the London night alone: it wasn't that he cared, just that it would cause far more problems than it would solve. The case that had consumed all his attention and led to this had itself now been consumed by something far more compelling. Sherlock twisted and stalked the length of the room again; it was only 3am, four more hours and John would start to move and Sherlock was perfectly capable of keeping him out of the living room until he'd gone and fetched supplies. He tried to view it as an experiment, tried to catalogue and analyse the changes his body went through, the way his senses sharpened, but his mind grew hazy and he couldn't hold the thoughts. Thinking about it only made it worse.

Reluctantly Sherlock flung himself onto the couch; he could rest, sleep perhaps, it had worked before to stave off hunger prior to his condition. Sleep didn't come; Sherlock tossed and turned restlessly feeling an energy in his limbs that was hard to ignore: a kind of sharp-edged buzz that reminded him of withdrawal. He stood again, needing to move, to use the energy that fizzed through his limbs. He ceased pacing after a few minutes and simply stood in the centre of the room and breathed deeply, forcibly relaxing each muscle in turn until finally, finally he was still. He breathed out slowly, success.

The pain was so sudden and complete that he was on his knees before it even registered. The part of him that always observed, wondered if this was what being eviscerated felt like. Maybe, he considered, if it were done with something red hot. He held a hand out and watched it shake like he had palsy, his bones felt strangely leaden and his muscles seemed to alternate between that strange fizzing restlessness and complete enervation. He tried to stand and found he couldn't. For a split second panic seized him; John had warned him about taking more care, about the consequences, brain damage, mindlessness.

Sherlock tried to stand again, panic lending him strength, but all he managed was a kind of lurch forwards into John's armchair. He let his head drop breathing in the scent of John that still lingered, finding it oddly reassuring. It would be fine, John would be down in the morning, he'd fix it. His general lack of faith in humanity had never applied to John, oddly enough, though the man was so average it was almost painful. John would find him. The second wave of pain set his nerves ablaze and his mind completely blanked for long seconds.

Sherlock came to gasping harshly against the fabric of the chair, gripped by a sudden new panic. John would find him in another three hours maybe, Sherlock knew now he would never last that long. John would come down and find him a mindless, ravening thing and what would happen after that would no doubt not be pretty and most likely one of them wouldn't survive it.

Another shudder ripped through him, like acid on his nerves, he bit his own hand to muffle the sound he was unable to prevent, but it did nothing to help, maybe only made it worse.

Sherlock tried to get up again, the London night was better than staying here now; John would be safe and Mycroft was perfectly capable of cleaning up any messes Sherlock left behind. His legs wouldn't bear his weight and Sherlock half landed on the coffee table, the edge jamming into his ribs painfully, but barely noticeable beneath the raw, scraping pain racing along his nerves now. Sherlock closed his eyes, breathing harshly as he tried to find the strength from somewhere. His cavalier attitude towards his own resilience and strength of will shattered as he realised he was at the mercy of their likely source. The surface of the coffee table was cool against his forehead; he wondered whether he'd be aware of his mind going, if he had already lost it and just didn't know. He couldn't concentrate on anything beyond the pain and the need.

"Sherlock," John's voice, worried, but still calm.

His head snapped up so quickly he felt the strain down his neck and across his shoulders as the tendons abruptly pulled taut. He realised his mouth had opened and closed it in something he thought might be shame. John shouldn't be here, he should be safe upstairs in bed.

"What did you do?" John asked softly, not accusation but concern, dismay perhaps.

Sherlock twisted his head away, partly in denial, partly to remove the temptation of sight, not that it helped, he could hear John's uneven step as he crossed the living room to halt on the other side of the coffee table. He knew he was watching, assessing, diagnosing. It was what John did, a variant on Sherlock's own deductive technique.

A sigh, "I suppose we're out then? You do know you're an idiot, don't you? Why didn't you say something earlier?"

Sherlock wanted to say that earlier it hadn't been a problem, but he disliked his inability to form words properly in this state. John had laughed himself sick the first time he'd lisped his way through a deduction.

Another sigh and John's footsteps moved away into the kitchen. Sherlock refrained from looking, but he could still follow John's progress from drawer to cupboard and back. And then the smell.

Sherlock couldn't help the sound that escaped him, pained and needy, and if he'd had the thought to spare he never would have allowed it, but his whole body strained against self-imposed stillness. Sherlock's head whipped round as John came back into the room, a gauze pad pressed to his forearm and a mug in the other. Sherlock didn't get to his feet; he wasn't sure he could and he retained enough self-control that drunken stumbling was not going to happen. He couldn't help the way his whole body turned towards John though as he rounded the coffee table and dropped into a crouch, still at arm's length and extended the mug.

Sherlock snatched it from him with shaking hands, he cracked his teeth on the rim in his haste, but he couldn't care less as he felt the warmth, the taste of it slide down his throat. He drained the mug and let it fall as his whole body seemed to unclench and ease.

John was warmth and comfort and care and he didn't judge and he hadn't run and Sherlock had never, ever tasted anything so good. He wasn't sure when he had closed his eyes, but he forced them open to see John watching him with that same steady gaze.

"Alright?" he asked quietly.

Sherlock struggled to sit up properly and succeeded with a little more effort. He still felt tired, worn somehow, but he could think again and he knew the rest would come.

"That wasn't very clever," he said, knowing he hadn't quite managed the nonchalance he had aimed for.

John shrugged, "The lives we lead: it was going to happen sooner or later."

Sherlock frowned, it was highly probable, but John knew the statistics as well as he did now, for addiction, for relapse, for certain, specific cravings. He glanced up, John was still at arm's length, but that was no distance at all really. He couldn't see the pulse in his carotid artery, but he knew it was there. "Why?" he hadn't meant the word to slip out, but it had.

John shrugged, "Because yes, statistically speaking, feeding from a living source makes you far more likely to kill, to kill me in fact, but," he paused and looked at Sherlock, really looked and Sherlock felt ashamed for having forced John to this. He decided he didn't like the sensation at all and anyway, no-one forced John to do anything, he had more options by far than Sherlock in this. "But you're still hungry aren't you?"

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively; he was, but it wasn't incapacitating anymore, they could go out in the morning and get something.

John's lips curved up in a slow smile, "Exactly."

For a long moment Sherlock looked blank then he felt so remarkably stupid he vowed never to let himself get into this state again, which would no doubt please John no end. He raised a hand, pleased to see it no longer shook, and pointed it accusingly at John, "You," words failed him and he refreshed his vow with renewed vigour.

John remained entirely undaunted, "Yes?" he enquired sweetly.

Sherlock shook his head; he was entirely capable of pretending this had never happened, particularly since John's explanation opened up new avenues of investigation. "I still need more, you know," he said with as much of his usual air as he could manage.

John's smile turned into something unreadable even to Sherlock as he slowly unwrapped the gauze from his forearm and held it out.

Sherlock felt something in him _ache_ for what was offered and he wasn't entirely convinced it was because of the blood. He glanced up at John's face once as his fangs descended again, but John didn't so much as blink. Carefully Sherlock wrapped his hands around John's proffered arm and lowered his mouth to the neat cut.

John was still warmth and comfort, but Sherlock wasn't sure care was the right word this time. He drank slowly, savouring, and felt John's free hand gently touch his hair, fingers threading into the curls carefully as though he might startle. Sherlock made a tiny sound of approval and felt the caress firm even as he drew a little more sharply. A few more moments would be enough, he judged, to be back up to speed, to be himself properly again and then he and John were going to have a little talk. Because vampirism was one thing, improbable and irritating, but falling in love with your flatmate and best friend was so unlikely it was going to require far more adjustment for them both.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know I should have put vamp!Sherlock in the tags, but I liked making you work it out :)


End file.
